Okay, bit of a long post. Given the wide discussion on this week's technical, including my own posts/comments, I put my money where my mouth is and had a go at Paul's Grape and Cheese Flatbreads. [I did make a separate post showing an image of my attempt, but it's currently sat in the ether awaiting Mod approval because I included an image I guess]

I've never made flatbreads before, but had some experience making basic Farmhouse loaves years ago.

I didn't follow the instructions the contestants were given, instead using the recipe on the Bake Off website.

I switched out the Olive oil for Sunflower, as I had a bottle of the latter at home. I also changed the Blue Cheese to Feta (Tesco's Greek), as I'm not a big fan of blue. I also used Allison's Strong White Bread Flour and their Fast Action Yeast.

My experience.

In total this took me 1-hour 40-minutes to complete. That includes weighing the ingredients, plus some washing and tidying up along the way.

I pre-heated the oven, then roasted the grapes as instructed, before making the dough. The dough came together nicely in my Salter Stand Mixer using the dough hook. It also proved really well in the 15-mintues given. In my small kitchen, the warmth of the oven will have helped the rise I guess.

Grapes roasted beautifully. They don't get crispy, but soften nicely.

• Side note: roasted honey coated grapes are delicious.

Dividing the dough was easy. Each ball (8 total) weighed approx. 100g.

Now, rolling out is where it didn't follow Paul's version. In the show the contestants were told roll out to 25cm/10". On the webpage it states 23cm/9". I struggled to roll them out to more than 17cm/7". The dough was nicely elastic, but it didn't want to roll out to the size 0 model Paul wanted. However, they all rolled out in a nice consistent way

• Side note: I do wonder if the 25cm/10" size was too much to expect.

Pan frying was straight-forward. If you've ever made Welsh Cakes (a staple of mine) it's a similar process. Just make sure the pan is nice and hot, and keep it hot. Each flatbread is cooked for 90-sec each side. I rolled out my first, put it in the pan, and while it cooked, filled and rolled out the next, and so on until all 8 were cooked.

Once cooked, mine were about 1-1.5cm thick, so definitely not as thin as Paul shows in his IG post.

My thoughts on this bake:

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy these are to make. As my first time, I did expect it to take longer than an hour. Without the faffing of tidying up along the way, and if I'd pre-weighed the ingredients then timed it, I estimate it would have taken me an hour-thirty, maybe an hour-twenty-five.

Much like my experience with Welsh Cakes, with time and practise I'll definitely see that time decrease. Would I hit the hour mark? Potentially, given enough practise.

As for the flatbreads themselves, they cooked really well and are beautifully textured. You'll get some scorching from the water and sugar in the grapes where they touch the pan, but it's not bad.

Would I change anything? Yes. The honeyed grape is an interesting addition. I'd reduce the amount used. I feel 250g of grapes is too much, but that's just my preference. Also, I'd increase the amount of cheese. Now, this could be due to using feta instead of blue, but I think 120g wasn't enough. I'll have to try some blues to see if there is one I don't mind, however, this recipe is suited to whatever crumbly or hard cheese you like in my opinion.

Now, the size. Paul's IG post shows them being quite large. If I'd been more aggressive with them, I might have been able to roll them out to the size asked for. However, I do like that mine were all a consistent size and were cooked through.

So there you have it. Nothing definitive, just my experience making them. I really enjoyed making these and will be doing so again. It's also inspired me to look into making other breads.

But for some reason I’m still getting pies, scones, and cakes….

I tend to make the same bakes over and over: Welsh Cakes, Shortbread, classic Victoria Sponge and variants on it, Cherry Cake, Scones, Millionaires Shortbread, Brownies.

I'd like to branch out a bit and would like suggestions for others I could try. I'm particularly keen to make some more regional bakes. For example, in the past I've made Eccles Cakes and Chorley Cakes which I quite enjoy.

I saw someone mention on another post, Bara Brith. This sounds quite interesting to make. As a country we have quite a rich and wide variety of regional bakes, so would like some ideas of things I could try. I'm particularly interested in loaf cakes, traybakes, and now I've tried flatbreads, I'd been interested in making more bread.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I’m from the US and have followed along for a long time and am a bit of an admitted Anglophile. I’m constantly amazed by how much I feel like I don’t know when it comes to “classic British bakes” for instance the iced gems this season was new. And Colin the caterpillar was definitely a cake I picked up last time I visited.

So now I’m on a mission to make these VERY classic British bakes from the show that I have not had. Any suggestions for what I should make besides the above mentioned and a cherry Bakewell?

I’m a little behind and I’m watching the ‘wearable bakes’ episode. Mo’s angel wings were so effective, but it was his face when he got praise from Paul, he gulped and his smile was lovely and he looked so chuffed. He really melted my heart!

bread week so i made the dastardly grape and blue cheese flatbreads. i have to be honest i found this pretty easy to make - although a bit sticky to get off the surface when rolled out. only downside was me doing all this and realising just how much i hate blue cheese and grapes 😮‍💨

recipe is loopywhisk flatbreads and then i used the honey roasted grapes/ blue cheese as suggested in the bake off recipe

Did anyone else notice the teddy bear? None of the judges mentioned that it had nipples. What was going on!?

She shovels the bites in and I LOVE that about her!!! How do you get a good sample without cramming it all in?

Need some inspo!

Does anyone know why they had proving boxes in the most recent episode? I noticed only a few used the drawers during the show stopper. What is the difference in using the drawers vs boxes?

Sincerely,
A confused baker

Can we all agree that Allison is STUNNING?! I love her so much.

So, this is maybe because I'm not British, but how do the bakers, especially this season in the technicals, remember all those recipes by heart?

I bake as a hobby and repeat a lot of recipes but I still have to look up the weights, number of eggs etc.

Do brits bake with easily remembered cup measures? Or are the sponges mostly pound cakes?

I couldn’t decide what to make for Week 3’s bake-out-of-your-pantry technical, so in the spirit of the bananas going brown on my counter, I made some banana walnut bread.

I used this recipe and swapped out half whole wheat flour, used about a cup more of banana than called for (because what was I going to do with a cup of mashed banana), and added walnuts. I think the extra banana made the batter more wet and required a long cook, which is why the bake is so dark, but it was not dried out or bitter at all.

It’s apple season here in Minnesota, so after a visit to the Apple House at our local arboretum, my husband requested an apple cake. In the spirit of audience choice, how could I say no? This might be the best apple cake I’ve ever had. You macerate the apples the night before, which was interesting. This allowed the cake to be absolutely PACKED with fruit, and not get soggy or wet. (I swear this isn’t a Sohla fan account, she’s just the best!)

You can practise cakes and biscuits until you've got a recipe memorised, but bread can go wrong in so many ways if you don't understand the dough. The technical really showed who could adapt and who was struggling once things stopped going to plan. It was a rough episode, but that's what makes bread such a good test.

I've tried messaging the Mods about this already and got no response from them: I submitted a post several days ago and got the automated "Post is awaiting moderator approval." message from them. I don't know why it's just sitting there. It is not controversial. It consists of an image I created using 3 screen shots of an episode, along with text consisting of the quote from the contestant depicted. It is a totally positive post that I put some time into creating. Any suggestions? (I've already re-submitted; perhaps that was a mistake...)

But what is with these terrible celebrity press interviews??? Judi isn't a good interviewer, they are like 10 minutes long, and they aren't related to anything.

Did channel 4 lose a bet or something with some random Hollywood studio?

The saturation is crazy on the bakers with blue eyes. Even those with darker blue eyes look like they have glowing White Walker eyes. Is this purely to make Paul’s eyes look extra blue?!

So simple and delicious!

I’m confused - they said yesterday, but most are wearing the same clothes as the technical (including t-shirts)… are they not actually doing these over 2 days anymore or am I just poor at observation

Just something I was wondering about during the last episode. For example Mo made an apparently rather spicy garlic bread which technically could affect the judges tasting of the next bake. Also a really strong garlic flavour in one could make the next one seem tasteless even if it would seem strong when tasted first. Do you think that this is taken into consideration when deciding the order in which the judges taste or do they maybe have a palate cleanser after each? Maybe I'm overthinking it but it stood out to me especially with the garlic breads.

I will preface by saying I am a trained baker and chocolatier, and have had previous workplaces approached for Professionals, so I am very critical of normal bake off. That being said, I don't feel that all this year's contestants are as capable as previous years. Kinda feels like the producers have gone more for the personality-hire vibes of the contestants than their actual baking ability, but perhaps that is just the editing and filming choices. But when I look back at previous winners and contestants, I don't feel that they were all fighting for the 'quirky' or 'unique' contestant role, like how I feel this year's are.

Maybe the fact that most contestants over the past 5-ish years have gone on to a book deal, social media side hustle, if not career/influencer status, etc might have something to do with it.

I am not saying the bakers are untalented, or that Bake Off is easy; it must be extremely nerve-racking, BUT I am having a hard time believing that this round of contestants were the best 12 bakers of all applicants, based on baking talent alone.

How have we made it 12 seasons and still have people dumping in extract with impunity?
Paul susses it out every single time.
Every time he tells them to use fresh flavors and not to overwhelm with extract.
I know they watch past seasons, so maybe jot that down?