‘Just stop’ Bake Off contestants can ‘save mistakes’, says expert

The Great British Bake Off: Carole's masks falls off

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

Channel 4’s ratings hit The Great British Bake Off is starting to hit its halfway point as the home cooks are cut down to size. The show has gone through the regular rounds of Bread Week, Cake Week, Biscuit Week, Pudding Week, Halloween Week and now it’s first-ever Mexican Week. During the episodes, each week has seen one person crowned Star Baker while another person is eliminated.

However, the show hasn’t been without its share of mishaps with under-baked items, which weren’t given an all-important second prove to collapsing creations in the Showstopper round.

Interestingly, in an exclusive interview, co-founder of Bad Brownie and baking guru, Paz Sarmah, said even when things went awry in the tent, there was always the potential to save a bake in the end.

“Everything that could go wrong, always does go wrong, doesn’t it?” he said. “The way I look at it, you’ve got two things. The stuff that you can control and the stuff that you can’t.”

Paz continued: “Things like the weather, and it’s a really hot week, you can’t control and you just have to deal with it the best you can. And the stuff that you can control, just make sure you follow the thing as diligently as possible.”

Paz and his business partner Morag Ekanger launched their online bakery company Bad Brownie in 2015, which has gone on to become a huge hit and is now worth an estimated £3.5 million.

He came to baking after starting off as a foodie, making culinary delights and eventually branching off into brownies with the company born from his love of food.

Paz said the pressure of Bake Off just got to people which opened them up to make mistakes.

He explained: “It’s just staying calm and really focused whatever happens that’s what Morag and I keep telling each other. Whatever happens, just take a deep breath.

“If you need to, just stop, even if it’s just for 20 seconds. Just take a time out and come back to it.”

Otherwise he warned: “And then it spirals and then that happens and then that happens.”

Paz said there were times he felt “completely awful” watching Bake Off and sympathising with the contestants as their culinary disasters played out on television.

“You can just see the blind panic that’s on some people’s faces and I’m still in admiration because the stuff they come up with is just unbelievable,” he said.

However, he said there was “always a way to save something” and advised the contestants to find out how to save really common mistakes.

He gave ganache as an example, saying when it split you simply needed to add in a splash of cold cream or cold milk and use an immersion blender on the mixture.

His advice on the common pitfall of caramel was to either do a wet caramel, whereby you put water and sugar together and stirred it to dissolve it and then “never, never, never” touch it until the water has gone.

Paz said: “On Bake Off, every time they do that, they stir it and I just look at it and put my head in my hands, like, ‘Don’t touch that caramel!’ because then you agitate it and it crystalises and then it forms those clumps.”

On the flip-side, he said for a dry caramel bakers should be stirring away but said whatever method you were doing you should always “watch like a hawk” caramel.

While on chocolate, he said it was all about temperature and warmed overheating it would affect its structural integrity, especially white chocolate. Paz’s big takeaway was to watch what you’re cooking and don’t get distracted.

Addressing who he thought could go all the way to the final, Paz said: “For me, Maxy, I love her, she’s just so fun to watch. Sandro has always been good.”

Adding: “Adbul has always been slightly behind but always edging ahead. I love Syabira, even though she may not get that far, I love her.”

Bad Brownie is now getting ready for its busy festive period with the company soon to be launching brownies shaped like coal with a salted caramel centre and teased there were some other products like this to “make people smile”.

The Great British Bake Off airs on Channel 4 on Tuesdays at 8pm

Source: Read Full Article