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The Great British Baking Show Recap: Swede, Swede Victory

Season 13 Episode 3 Editor’s Rating2 stars **

Photo: Netflix

Welcome to Bread Week, or as I like to call it, Paul Hollywood Is Even More Insufferable Than Usual Week. Actually, I have come around to liking Paul, but I still reflexively think he’s insufferable. But he was not on this season’s Bread Week, and that might be because, well, they didn’t do much bread baking. Also, no one went home. What is even happening this week?

The first thing we find out is that Rebs and Abdul are feeling “under the weather” and can’t compete this week. Yeah, that sounds like English COVID. English COVID is just like American COVID, but it encapsulates the great British solution to any problem: ignore it until it goes away. That’s sort of the government policy at the moment. There’s no testing, no masks, no restrictions; everyone just takes a test if they get a runny nose, doesn’t tell anyone that they have COVID while they stay home for a week, and then emerge back into life as if nothing happened. Or maybe they were just sick. I don’t know. Also, doesn’t it seem a little early in the season for the tent to be this empty? It’s eerie.

The first challenge is to make a pizza. What kind of pizza? Oh, any kind. Really? I mean there is the New York slice, the grandma style, Chicago deep dish, Detroit style with cheese to the edge, and whatever monstrosity it is that Poopa John’s delivers to your door. But know what all of these kinds of pizza are not? Bread! Yeah, I guess it has a bread base, but it’s not bread, it’s … pizza. Sorry, I can’t do it. I cannot think of pizza as bread.

Also, all of these varieties are mostly American inventions, because the two things we’re good at are pizza and wars we shouldn’t be involved with in the first place. At one point Prue dings someone’s pizza as being “too American,” as if that’s supposed to be an insult. American pizza is delicious. A true delight. English pizza is all wet, soggy, Neapolitan-style with not nearly enough toppings on it. I don’t want to be a cultural imperialist, but America could teach these people a thing or two about pizza.

I don’t know about all of these pies on offer, though. Both James and my lover Sandro are putting pineapples on their pizza, which is a nonstarter for me. Dawn is putting sour cream and guacamole on her Tex-Mex-style pizza and that makes me want to bury myself at the California Pizza Kitchen. She’s also using stew beef and is worried it won’t be tender enough. I have seen this show enough to know it will not be.

But the most disgusting of all has to be Janusz’s “full English” pizza, which includes all the staple of the nation’s favorite morning meal: sausage, bacon, baked beans, mushrooms, and blood sausage, which, as the name suggests, is literally congealed blood in a sausage casing. What is this, some kind of Survivor challenge where they have to eat gross things? Shockingly, when Paul finally tastes it he says it lacks flavor. I don’t know how that is possible considering it has about 19 different dishes on top of it.

The only two I would try are Syabira’s, which is based on a Malaysian shrimp dish I’m not familiar with but sure sounds good enough to try, and Kevin’s, which has figs, balsamic glaze, and haloumi, something Great Britain loves even more than it loves electing Tories.

There are no real disasters in the first round, except maybe for Compost Carol’s pizzas, which kind of look like someone threw up clam chowder all over an Amazon delivery box. But they say it tastes great, so I believe them. Sandro the Amazing probably gets the best critique for his stuffed-crust pizza (America says you’re welcome for that invention) that he made in the shape of a heart to prove that he really loves me as much as he thinks he does.

Next up is the technical, where they have to make pain au raisins, or as they’re called in my household, “pannos.” Yes, there may be bread right there in the name, but this is a pastry. You do not buy this next to the Wonder Bread or even in the same bakery cabinet as sourdough rolls at your local supermarket. You buy these with the croissants, pain au chocolat, and other morning treats. That makes them a pastry. I could excuse this, but you know an entire week of pastry is coming. Let them make it then.

Struggling the most is Kevin, who seems resigned to the fact that he is going to come in last. He cares so little, he doesn’t even put them in a proofing bag because he says the runny crème patissiere he slathered them in will keep them from drying out. I sympathize with Kevin on this. If it were me, at some point during these technicals, when I see it all going more south than the dangly tip of Florida, I would just throw my hands in the air and tell Prue Leith, right to her face, to suck it. That’s essentially what he does when he sits there watching the butter run out of his dough, totally ruining the non-bread.

The best part of this whole challenge is when Noel goes over to talk to Sandro while he’s rolling out dough and starts chatting about his very shapely arms. Sandro gives us a little bicep flex, and I had to call a plumber because all of the basements on my whole block simultaneously flooded. Was there a rainstorm? Nope, just GBBO.

Shockingly, the judges rate Compost Carole in the bottom because she put her non-breads of raisins too close to each other so they stuck together. Don’t worry, Kevin is just after that. The top is Janusz, followed by Maxy, and if these two aren’t the front-runners for the entire competition at this point then I don’t know what show it is you are watching.

The showstopper is a smörgåstårta, which I am only typing out once because the option key on my Mac is lazy. It is Swedish, which is good news for Maxy, since she was born there, and is basically a sandwich that looks like a cake. Sandwiches and cakes are two of my favorite things in the world, but if you show me a cake and it tastes like a sandwich there is gonna be a rumble at the combination Sprinkles-Jersey Mike’s Subs. At least this is a challenge where they actually have to bake some bread, though, even if it seems like it is the fillings who are the real stars here.

There seems to be the usual level of tension in the tent, but drawn out because they have ample time to both bake bread and make fillings, and no one seems to be buckling under the pressure. Is this just a very talented crop of bakers or are they just especially chill? Sandro My Darling even finishes with enough time to clean and wipe down his entire bench. Sure, we saw some bicep earlier, but this is a flex.

As soon as the judges start going around, you can tell who is in trouble. Paul finds out that Dawn is making a Greek-inspired smörgåstårta (damn, I was only supposed to type that once!) and that she’s not using ground beef, cilantro, or other traditionally Greek flavors. Naturally when she gets up there with a simple white cake with some rolled-up cucumbers on the top, Paul tells her that she should have used all the things he told her to. Just take the note, Dawn.

Janusz is first to the judging table and his offering looks amazing. It’s covered in a curry sauce and sort of looks like if the yellow part of a deviled egg became an entire birthday cake. He combined cod, mushy peas, and fried potatoes to make a fish-and-chips–inspired dish and also had the inspiration to put it on top of a cone of newspaper, the traditional way the dish is served in the U.K. The judges, of course, love it.

Compost Carole’s creation is sloping a little bit on the sides, but it is white and covered in flowers and vegetables and looks quite delicious. Prue loves the filling and this basically catapults her out of the bottom. James’s Chinese-inspired pork dish with red sauce on the top looks cool but not appetizing. However, there are three milk bread pandas to decorate it, and someone should start selling those in a store immediately.

Kevin’s dish is inspired by his wife’s fish pie and even features a darling cucumber fisherman on top, but it looks like Swamp Thing. No, that’s wrong, it looks like Swamp Thing’s turd after only eating vines for a week. It’s the only one that is a real disaster, but considering all the layers involved this week, it’s a shock that no one’s toppled altogether.

Maxy makes a curved creation inspired by one from her youth and I love the shape of it, but everyone thinks it’s not as neat as it could have been. Maybe that’s because she stuck some arugula on the sides so it looks like a pair of underpants with grass stains. The judges say it tastes delicious, though, so she is entirely forgiven. It is the opposite of Syabira’s, which is a marvel. The top looks like a city from Avatar, either the James Cameron movie or the superior cartoon about airbenders. There are steps carved out of cucumbers, roses made out of carrots, and, my favorite touch, connected cucumber half-circles around the side to give a wave effect. The judges coo when they get inside to find another take on a Malaysian dish that looks great. (Note to self: Get reservations at a Malaysian restaurant.)

My lover Sandro’s could be called the leaning tower of pizza, but that was the first challenge. This time he’s all about sloppy joes and meat. Lots of meat. Huge, giant chunks of meat that will make you salivate all night long. Prue loves it, but Paul says it only tastes like barbecue sauce.

At the end it looks like Kevin will be the one taking the train ride of shame home, but he’s fighting it out with Dawn. Syabira looks like a shoo-in for the top spot, but the judges are also praising besties Janusz and Sandro. I was a little shocked that Janusz, now clearly the leader, takes his second win in three weeks, but then we get the real shocker: No one is going home. I guess that is the only fair way to do it, since two bakers were absent, but Prue does warn us that means that two bakers will be going home one week in the near future.

The reality-TV critic in me would usually be pissed about this; what is the point of the episode if we’re in the same place at the end as we were at the beginning? But I can’t be mad at this show. It is where people do come to make friends and the real enjoyment of watching is seeing people succeed, not seeing who goes home. Some things are just so damn nice not even I can get upset about it. You know, as long as you don’t make me a cake that tastes like a sandwich.

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