'The Great British Baking Show' Collection 9, Episode 6 Recap: Pastry Week

It's Pastry Week in the tent on The Great British Baking Show, one of the standard-issue weeks that has been with the show almost since the dawn of the series. Pastry Week is one of those that always falls late in the game but is never quite so tough to be a semi-final. Notably, considering this week's challenges, the show's two seasons that didn't have a Pastry Week theme, the series replaced it wholesale with Pie Week. (Both seasons that skipped it were very early on: Series 2, which has never aired here, and Series 3, aka GBBO: The Beginnings.)

Perhaps the fundamental nature of something like Pastry Week is why Noel and Matt cannot even ruin it with a crappy opener, resorting to the sad sight of someone eating a shoe. (The less said about their other jokes, the better.) It's also another sign of how much this season has gone back to the basics when it comes to the challengers for the bakers, after realizing that the reason the show has remained popular lo this last decade is that they weren't messing with perfection. And is there really anything more perfect than pastry? I believe there is not.

Signature Challenge