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When people ask me what it’s like to live as an American in the U.K., I often use the example of going to ‘80s night in London. One minute I’m dancing along, singing all the words to “When Doves Cry,” “Thriller,” or “Material Girl,” and the next minute Heaven 17’s “Temptation” comes on and all the British people lose their minds shouting every lyric to a song I have never heard in my life. It sounds like it could be an American song from the era, so it’s simultaneously familiar and unmooring.
The moral of the story is that our cultures seem almost identical until they don’t. That’s exactly how I felt watching Back to School Week. For the past few weeks, we’ve dealt with cookies, cakes, and bread — things that are almost similar on both sides of the pond. However, when it comes to the nostalgia-tinged bakes of our school years, most Americans must feel like “Temptation” is blaring over the speakers. (For the record, “Temptation” is a jam.)
It starts with flapjacks. Many Americans must have thought they were about to make pancakes, which is usually a synonym for the breakfast dish. Two totally different things. (Do not even get me started on what English people consider pancakes.) A flapjack is kind of like a granola bar, but not crunchy. There really is no American equivalent. Think of an oatier, chewier, rectangular oatmeal cookie, and you’ll be kind of close. It’s the kind of thing that you get at school as a child, obviously, but also at museum cafes, coffee shops, and the like.
This is a good challenge because it doesn’t force the bakers to do anything corny other than elevate something that they’ve all had many times. In general, I like the idea of Back to School Week, mostly because it kept things simple but elevated. The theme hews to the wholesomeness and spirit of British identity that infuses the show and makes it so lovely to watch. Most viewers went to school, have core memories from those years, and feel emotional attachments to the foods they ate back then. Also, this episode was filled with more school puns than you can shake a large group of fish at. So, solid marks to all the producers, especially on the puns.
Of course perfect Tom wants to be the perfect teachers’ pet and is not even making perfect flapjacks he’s making perfect apples (for the teacher) that have apple crumble inside and a hidden and perfect flapjack. Oh, Tom, he’s perfect. When they ask if he practiced at home, he says, “Kind of,” which is the kind of imperfect response we expect from someone other than perfect Tom. Turns out he’s less than perfect this week and doesn’t quite finish in time, leaving his apples attractive but a little unpolished, including leaving off the stem. Still, Prue says they’re very clever and Paul says they’re well done. He was 15 minutes away from another handshake.
Like Tom, Jasmine hasn’t made her raspberry and chocolate flapjacks in the allotted time yet, but, unlike Tom, hers come out, well, perfect. Prue says they’re neat as pins and both judges love the flavor, the texture, and the bake. Check. Check. Check.
Also fairing well is Aaron, whose flapjacks are covered in Earl Grey butter cream and lemon jam, which sounds like the kind of combination you would eat if you really needed to vomit for medical reasons. However, the buttercream is piped in two fat lines on top of his flapjacks, making it look like two pieces of chalk, which is very on theme. Apparently, the tastes are better than I thought, because Paul says it is a triumph, though he keeps his hands to himself.
Having obvious trouble is Lesley, who put a layer of shortbread under her flapjack, which screwed up the cooking time, which screwed up the decorating time, which left Lesley, well, screwed. Nataliia’s flapjacks breaks when coming out of the tray, so she has to cut them into triangles, which Prue hates because she knows that it is hip to be square, to quote another ‘80s song. Iain makes banana bread-inspired flapjacks, which are two school treats in one, but Paul says they are too soft and need more time in the oven. When Iain explains he was going for a banana bread consistency, in a rare feat of sarcasm, Paul says that they’re perfect then, and he takes it back.
Nadia tries to put tempered chocolate on the top of her flapjacks, but there is too much and it doesn’t set. The chocolate ruins their appearance and also their taste. Jessika’s red wine and poached pear looked the most grown-up, like a sophisticated dessert with a Bordeaux colored bit of pear on top. Sadly, the texture is too soggy, and Paul says the pears in them turned them almost into glue. Seriously, Paul. What is more Back to School than eating some paste?
The technical is another thing Americans will have no idea about: School Cake. It’s essentially a sheet cake with vanilla icing and sprinkles on top, but cut into individual cubes and served as “school dinner,” which is what English people call school lunch, even though lunch is lunch and dinner is dinner, and cake is cake, no matter what time of day you eat it. This is a treat that many wee Britons had on Fridays to keep them docile all week. It actually started as Tottenham Cake, which was a square of cake given out to kids after the Tottenham Hotspur football (read: soccer) team won a big championship. God, this just gets more and more English as the episode goes on.
Because the bake is fairly simple, Prue removes any modern conveniences from the kitchen, forcing the bakers to whip things by hand. She also requires them to make everything from scratch, including the sprinkles. I have never, not even for a second, thought about how sprinkles are made and, frankly, I don’t think I want to know. I just want to keep imagining that they rained down from a far distant glitter planet, or are the turds of fairies, or something. Sprinkles aren’t made, they’re just, I don’t know, discovered.
During the technical, we learn that perfect Tom is also a perfect gossip, which makes me even more of a fan of his than I was before. He also says that Aaron is waiting for Paul Hollywood to call him a “naughty boy” before saying, “Just kidding. That’s me.” Wait, he also says that if he got a handshake, he would ask his partner if he could take it further with Paul. Do I have a blue-eyed, sausage-fingered competitor for Tom’s affections? I’m going to have to feed him some Earl Grey and lemon flapjacks so he’s puking his guts out and swoop in and steal perfect Tom and his perfect arms and his perfect hair and his perfect bakes right out from under Paul’s steely gaze.
Everything in the technical comes out evenly without any obvious triumphs or disasters. However, Nadia, Natalia, and Jessika are the bottom three, just as they were in the signature, which suggests their fates are sealed. Jasmine takes the win (or should I say takes the cake), followed by Aaron and Iain.
The showstopper is yet another thing foreign to Americans, the stall at a school’s Summer Fête, which they all pronounce like “fate” and Nataliia pronounces like “fight” because she’s hilarious. You probably guessed from watching it, but a Summer Fête is essentially a school carnival organized by the PTA to raise money, which is why it features games, food, face painting, and other familiar activities. However, their games are not like ours. Nadia says she always plays Tombola, which is a kind of raffle. Jasmine makes a game of Quoits, which is basically a ring toss. Perfect Tom makes a perfect Coconut Shy, where there are a bunch of coconuts set up and you have to throw another coconut to knock them down and win a prize. Nothing shy about those coconuts! And literally everyone else makes a Hook-A-Duck, which at first I thought was a waterfowl that engages in the world’s oldest profession. But no, it’s just a floating duck that you have to pluck out of a little pool with a hook on a stick.
So far, this has been a season of redemption, and a couple of bakers pull off ambitious showstoppers, getting themselves out of detention. Rather than just making three elements, like the judges required, Nadia decides to go for four, creating donuts that hang on a board, a giant vanilla cupcake topped with meringue, sugar cookie pencils, and hamburgers that are really a brownie on a donut bun, which not only look real, but apparently taste amazing.
Also going with a food illusion is Lesley, who makes a coffee and walnut cake that resembles a steak pie, and instead of steak, she includes brownies to fool the judges. It also looks quite real and quite delicious. The judges also love her apple biscuits and meringues that look like lollipops.
Nataliia also pulls herself from the bottom and pulls this challenge out of the bag, or rather, the backpack. She confesses she has never been to a school fête and was probably as lost during these challenges as other international viewers, but her citrus curd-filled backpack cake really wows the judges. It isn’t food disguised as other food, but all of these cake illusions seem to work.
Well, not so fast. Iain has the idea to make a Funfetti cake that looks like a computer monitor, but when he finishes it, the computer looks like it has been left on overnight in the Computer Science room with no air conditioning. It is almost melting. He also makes some tiny Hook-A-Duck meringues that the judges feel are way too sweet. They also say that it is apparent that Iain struggled, which is something I haven’t heard since I took my last math test. (Sorry, English people, but there is only one math. I will die on this numerical hill!)
The judges are even harsher to Jessika, whose plans seemed ambitious to start with, involving a chocolate triceratops emerging from a stout cake book. However, the cake is far too stout, takes too long to bake, and comes out looking like a tar pit that a triceratops would be preserved in. She goes with a dinosaur theme and also makes marshmallow and jam dinosaur footprints and chocolate dinosaur eggs. Sadly, the judges hate all of them. Paul says both the texture and flavor of the cake is off, the biscuit is underbaked, and that the eggs are far too many flavors at once. Jessika is the only person who couldn’t improve her grades and was put on permanent suspension, sent home for good. Our poor Jessika, much like Donna Martin, she’ll never graduate.
At the top of the class, for the second week in a row, is Jasmine. She makes the best-looking Hook-A-Duck cake, as well as a Quoits game out of pretzels, and gorgeously piped biscuits that look like hopscotch. (Does anyone like playing hopscotch? Are there even rules? I’m sorry, but this is a game I don’t even believe really exists.) Paul loved the biscuits and everything else, giving the rare compliment that her bake had both style and substance. Overall, Back to School week was a nice foray into new territory, but now I’m probably going to have nightmares about having to take a test I didn’t study for. Yes, in my dreams, I’m just like Tom.
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Brian Moylan
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