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The Great British Baking Show Season 9 Episodes
Season 9 Episode Guide
12 Episodes 2018 - 2019
Episode 1
Biscuit Week
57 mins
The bakers tackle signature biscuits that will say something both about them and a place in the British Isles. Next the bakers face their first Technical, and hiding under the gingham cloth is one of Paul's childhood favourites - an iconic biscuit that's sure to send the bakers round in circles. Finally, it's crunch time. The bakers will have to be picture perfect with their first showstopper - a spectacular 3D biscuit portrait challenge that requires precision baking and superb decorating skills. Three challenges, three chances to win star baker, three chances to avoid leaving the tent.
Episode 2
Cake Week
56 mins
In the slightly altered words of Marie Antoinette, "let them bake cake," as it's cake week. For the signature, each baker is required to make a tray bake of their choice, with the only stipulation being that they must be able to make it into sixteen identical slices, as that's how it will be served and thus judged. For the technical, they are going to art school in making a gâteaux vert which was Claude Monet's favorite cake for his birthday. As the name suggests, it is various shades of green in its component parts, all using natural ingredients for that green, the icing which actually uses spinach for its color. And for the showstopper, they are each required to make a multi-tiered chocolate collar cake, meaning that the cake will be encased within a chocolate collar. The collar itself will give the bakers ample opportunity not only to demonstrate their chocolate skills, but also their artistic skills.
Episode 3
Bread Week
57 mins
It's Bread Week, and the ten remaining bakers have a lot to prove with three tough challenges set by judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith. There is a teatime fruity favourite Signature; a deceptively simple time-test of a Technical with an international flavour; and an ambitious Showstopper that's the largest bread sculpture challenge ever set in the tent. Only one can claim Star Baker, while one of them will leave the tent for good.
Episode 4
Dessert Week
56 mins
Excluding last week's eliminated baker, the tent is down one additional person in he not feeling well, which, upon agreement by all concerned, will not affect his standing in the tent. He will be missing dessert week where artistic skill may be more important than ever. The bakers will each have to make a family-sized meringue roulade for the signature, the judges looking for a perfectly shaped tight swirl, a meringue with minimal cracks, and a good proportion of sharp filling to sweet meringue. The bakers are sent back to the 1970s for the technical where each is asked to make a fresh raspberry blancmange with twelve identical langues du chat (translated as cat's tongues) biscuits. And for the showstopper, the bakers are asked each to make a melting chocolate sphere dessert: a chocolate sphere which melts away when a hot sauce is poured on top to reveal the dessert of their choice encased within, all elements which must be complementary in flavor.
Episode 5
Spice Week
56 mins
Instead of being down by one baker this week compared to last, it is instead up one with Terry having returned after his illness last week, and the judges deciding not to eliminate anyone last week in relation to the Terry situation, with the expectation that two bakers will be eliminated after the next three bakes in this, the first ever spice week. In addition, the tent will be down one more half way through the weekend, also due to illness. Their first bake is ginger cake, suitable in size for a family tea. They can use any type of ginger they want and whatever other flavors, but ginger must be the dominant flavor. The technical will be a mystery to most in the tent: they each have to make two batches of six Middle Eastern pastries called ma'amoul, one batch walnut-filled and molded, the other date filled and pinched. And the bakers are asked to make a chandelier out of spiced biscuits for the showstopper, the biscuits which must be sturdy enough to be hung.
Episode 6
Pastry Week
56 mins
It's one of the most feared weeks of the competition, namely pastry week. They bakers are heading half way around the world for the signature in making six sweet and six savory samosas, each with an accompanying complementary dipping sauce. For the technical, each baker has to make six French pastries called puits d'amour, translated wells of love, which not only contains two types of pastry - rough puff and choux - but also crème patisserie and a fruit compote. And for the showstopper, they are asked to make what Paul and Prue are calling a banquet pie, basically meaning one that would act as a centerpiece at an event, the pie which could be shared among a large number of people. The added challenge is that they cannot use a mold, such as a pie plate, so need to form their eye-catching centerpiece by hand.
Episode 7
Vegan Week
57 mins
For the very first time on Bake Off, it's Vegan week. Prue and Paul have set three very different challenges to test the remaining bakers. A savoury pastry Signature, with no butter involved. A cracking Technical, with a very unusual ingredient. And finally, a spectacular Showstopper that, in the heat of the tent, threatens to lead to catastrophe. Who will keep their cool and win star baker? And who will be meeting their end?
Episode 8
Danish Week
56 mins
Velkommen to Danish Week in the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off. The bakers face unfamiliar recipes as they battle to impress Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood. There's a bread challenge Signature where they must demonstrate style as well substance. Paul sets a spherical Technical - and with a place in the Bake Off Semi-final at stake, everyone is out to impress. And for their final challenge, the bakers must deliver an elaborate pastry Showstopper fit for a Danish birthday party. Who will become an honorary Great Dane, and who will be leaving the tent?
Episode 9
Semi-Final: Patisserie Week
56 mins
The final four are entering the semi-finals where they have to tackle the world of high end patisserie where nothing less than perfection is acceptable. For the signature, the bakers will make twenty-four dipped madeleines, twelve each of two different flavors. Besides the flavors and the neat as opposed to rustic look of the decorations, Paul and Prue are looking for the distinctive shape of the mold and the opposing "hump", some risking the shortcut in lieu of the short amount of time to prepare the batter by traditional methods. On the other extreme in one of the longest technicals ever, each baker is asked to make a torta setteveli, a multi-component seven layer cake originating from Sicily. And mirroring what would be seen in Paris, the bakers are each asked to make a Parisian patisserie window of twelve each of three types of patisserie: choux pastry, pate sucre, and puff pastry "mille feuilles".
Episode 10
Final
58 mins
The finals have arrived meaning three more bakes for those left standing: Ruby Bhogal, Kim-Joy Hewlett and Rahul Mandal. Going in, it may be the most balanced final in the show's history with each baker having been named Star Baker twice. For the signature, the three will make six filled and six ring doughnuts, all twelve to be decoratively iced. For the bakers' final technical of the competition in this theme-less week, they are taken far outside what they've known for the previous nine weeks in the tent, both literally and proverbially. And for the final bake of the season, their showstopper is a landscape dessert with at least three different baked elements, at its completion - delayed due to unforeseen circumstances - when Paul and Prue will make the decision of this year's winner to be announced with the finalists' friends and family and the season's eliminated bakers in attendance.
Episode 11
The Great Christmas Bake Off
58 mins
Four former contestants - two pairs of past bake-off rivals - return to the tent for a Christmas themed one weekend only bake-off, each who had different issues which sent them packing from the tent their first time around. They will have to make twelve iced biscuits apiece on the theme of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" as their signature. Beyond the basics, Paul and Prue are looking for originality in the way they tackle the theme. For the technical, they are each asked to make six decorative wafer-thin Icelandic Christmas fried breads called laufabrauð. And the showstopper is the illusion of a Christmas present sponge when cut reveals a "present" (i.e. an interior design). Who will win this bake-off may come down to who has learned the most from their first time in the tent, one who mentions being haunted by the ghost of Paul Hollywood in the intervening years.
Episode 12
The Great Festive Bake Off
58 mins
In the second seasonal reunion of the year, four former contestants reconvene at the tent for a bake-off to ring in the new year, one of those four who won the title the year of her competition and thus may be the one with the target on her back sighted by the other three. For the signature, the bakers are each required to make an iced stollen wreath, the only other stipulations being that the circle forming the wreath must be fully enclosed, and that the mandatory marzipan encased within the dough, typical of a stollen, is made by the bakers themselves. For the technical set by Prue, she'd like each to lay, oops, bake four snow eggs, each individually served in a martini glass floating in crème Anglaise and covered with a spun sugar cage. And for the showstopper, each baker is to make a three-dimensional new's years resolution cake, something that represents their own resolution for the start of 2019.
