The Great British Bake Off - the (all girl) quarter final!

Three words spring to mind when I think of tonight's Great British Bake Off: tough, emotional, and tense. This was probably the toughest set of challenges ever on the show, and the pressure to do well really got to Holly and Yasmin, who both broke down at different points throughout the episode, and the build up to who would go home was bigger than ever, as it was very close - between Holly and Yasmin. It was so close infact, that Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry had to look back over the entire 6 weeks, at who was the worst overall at the technical challenges, to decide who would go home. Holly just made it through, which I was thrilled about, as she is one of my favourites in the competition.

Also, focusing now on the positives of the episode, Mel and Sue were their usual funny-selves, and made me laugh, as always. Also, Jo was crowned the Star Baker of the week, because of her great achievements in the first two rounds (which were the baked cheesecake, and the chocolate roulade) and also because the judges loved the taste of her croquembouche.

May I just say, the word croquembouche, to say out loud, is quite funny, and just like the word roulade, I'd never heard of it before tonight. I also thought that a chocolate roulade was just a fancy word for a swiss roll, but later on Mel said that it was made slightly differently to a swiss roll. And to quickly go back to a negative aspect of the episode, no-one's roulade turned out perfectly, as they all had cracks in them. Janet's turned out the worst, as she did a practise-roll, which made it crack more when she rolled it the second time. Mary Berry said that "That was a major mistake to roll it up first", which I would agree with, even though I knew nothing about it, before watching the show.

Now, because my memory is failing me at the moment, I shall now include some pictures which I took of the episode, to jog my memory, as to what the contestants made, and because I like to include pictures, although last week I never got round to taking any.

To start off with, here is Mel and Sue. They seem to have swapped jackets, as Mel usually wears the lighter coloured one, and Sue wears the darker coloured one. But, as you can see, Mel's in the navy-blue one, and Sue's in the grey one. It was a nice change to the norm.

The five remaining contestants

From left to right: Yasmin, Jo and Janet.

Mary-Anne and Holly.

Jo and Holly's cheesecakes

This is Jo's rum and raisin baked cheesecake, which looks pretty perfect to me.

And this is Holly's Father Christmas' baked cheesecake, which looks rather yummy!

Jo and Holly's chocolate roulades

This is Jo's chocolate roulade, which I think looks nice, and I really like the added chocolate sprinkles on the top.

And this is Holly's chocolate roulade, which doesn't look too bad, it just has a few cracks in it, but it looks well made.

Jo and Holly's croquembouches

Here is Jo's Limoncello and White Chocolate Croquembouche, which apart from the fact that it's leaning to the left, it looks very yummy!

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a full length pic of Holly's lovely dark chocolate tower, so instead, here are two pics of her little Hansel and Gretel house, underneath her croquembouche tower.

I absolutely love the little house, and trees that Holly has made. I think it's very creative and looks amazing!

Emotional moments in the episode

This is Holly crying. I hated seeing her get so upset, but it's understandable, as it was a very tough week.



And here is Yasmin getting upset (because she burnt her fingers on her boiling caramel), and Sue comforting her.

And here is Mel wiping Holly's tears away with a tea towel. I thought that that's a very sweet thing to do. Bless Mel and Sue for being so nice to Yasmin and Holly.

Some people would choose not to include emotional pics, but to me that's one of the things that stood out in that episode, and so I felt I had to include it.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed looking at the pics I took. Please comment below, letting me know what you thought.

Ss1. x