The Great British Bake Off Series 7: Episode Bread

It's bread week! Mel and Sue (returned in one piece from her penguin expedition) get us off to the most appropriate start by standing on a bread roll and informing us that they're both wearing loafers. Ah, Bake Off.

The signature challenge this week is to make a bread with chocolate in. I like bread, I like chocolate, but I've never been sold on chocolate bread.

Kate makes a cobbled loaf inspired by her husband's grandmother, whom she claims was known as “Nanny Cobbles”. This may be the most twee thing to happen on Bake Off yet, beating out the last thing Kate did (make a gingerbread Brownie camp). I'm not really feeling Kate. Elsewhere, Selasi is waiting for his bread by lying on the floor with his hands behind his head, Val is counting to five hundred kneads of her bread and has reached seven, Candice informs us that “nobody likes a small unfilled ball”, and Sue refers to Michael's “manually explored bread”. Both the latter two are innuendo I could have done without, to be honest.

Time's up and the finished breads... don't really go down that well. Basically only nine-year-old Andrew and Tom the Murderer get completely positive feedback for their bread, despite Andrew's risky decision to only prove his bread once. At least half the others are underbaked, including Candice who breaks down in tears and says she's really embarrassed. I'm slightly worried about Candice.

The technical challenge this week is Dampfnudel, which I spelled almost right without looking it up. It's apparently some kind of steamed dumpling thing, or as Mary puts it, “an iced bun without the icing”. So... a bun, then. We learn a bit of Dampfnudel history, with a story about how a baker made over a thousand of them in order to broker a peace or some such, and then a German quartet in full performance dress shows up to sing a Dampfnudel song. The fact that there is a special Dampfnudel song makes me quite happy.

Yet again there's quite a bit of raw bread on the judging table. Rav is last, followed by Jane and Kate, and at the other end of the scale are Candice, Andrew, and Val in first place. She suggests that this is because she's old and has made a lot of dumplings in her life.

Finally we go into the Showstopper, which this week is a savoury centrepiece made of plaited bread. Some of the shaping is a bit half-arsed this week, particularly Selasi who is making a tree and a ball for some reason. In the “more effort” category are Kate, making a plaited corn doll because she is too twee for words; Tom the Murderer, making Thor's hammer and using lava to do so because of course he is; and Val, who is attempting to make Noah's Ark out of bread plaits. Good luck with that, Val. At least it seems unlikely that anyone will be getting a stupid special commendation for a not-that-impressive bread lion this time.

Sue tells Tom the Murderer that his bread looks “...very male.” “Yeah,” says Tom the Murderer, “it's Thor's hammer, you know? Also, T for Tom...” Sue pulls a face at him and he says, “I'm not being led. My mum's going to watch this.” I am possibly being won over by Tom the Murderer. Send help.

Val's ark is looking less than ark like. Also she's cut some corners on the whole “the animals went into two by two” concept.

“Why is there only one elephant?”

“They've argued.”

“Why is there only one dove?”

“One's flown off.”

Oh, Val. She then cuts her finger minutes before time up and both Mel and Sue have to wrestle a plaster onto her while shouting “Health and safety, Val! Take the plaster!”

Showstopper Results in Brief: both the breads in Jane's plaited flower are good; Val's ark looks completely bonkers and nothing like an ark, and also isn't baked properly; Tom the Murderer's hammer looks and tastes good but has a slight problem with uneven distribution; Andrew's woven basket looks great, tastes great and makes an excellent hat; Benjamina's bread heart tastes good; Rav's Diwali centrepiece has something wrong with each bread; Selasi's tree thing has no visible plait and is too half-arsed in concept; Michael's Cypriot bread looks messy and doesn't have enough flavour; Kate's twee corn doll looks and tastes great; and Candice's plaited dome has one good bread and one bad bread. She's completely convinced she's going home.

Star Baker this week is Tom the Murderer and his incredibly nerdy bread. Go Tom the Murderer! Going home is Michael, which I'm quite surprised about because he didn't seem to do any worse than several other people. Candice and Val are both surprised it wasn't them, and so am I, though obviously I'm pleased it wasn't Candice. Michael is sad about leaving, and I'm sad for him, though I can't really remember anything he did. He seems sweet, though.

Next week: the first ever Batter Week! Churros for all! Mmmmm... churros.