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The Great Canadian Baking Show Season 4 Episodes
Season 4 Episode Guide
8 Episodes 2021 - 2021
Episode 1
Cake Week
44 mins
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a renewed focus on baking, something not lost on the season 4 batch of contestants. This, the first week, is cake week, as the judges believe cakes will provide a good initial test to gauge the bakers' overall skill level. The signature challenge is to make an elevated version of a traditional bundt cake with a drizzle or glaze, it most defined by the intricate pattern of the pan - the cake served inverted to show off that pattern - with the hole in the center. The contestants have an hour and forty-five minutes to complete the challenge. The seemingly easy challenge will be to see who actually understands what about baking, aside from the one issue of getting the cake out of the pan without the cake falling apart. For the technical challenge, the bakers are required to make in two hours a vertical striped red velvet cake on a cupid theme for Valentine's Day, the cake itself a roulade set on its side so that when cut in wedges it shows off the vertical stripes. The judges are looking to see if the bakers can make all the vastly different components, from the cake for the roulade, to the Swiss meringue butter cream filling and icing to the tempered ruby chocolate decorations, and if the final product has an appropriate ratio of cake to buttercream. And for the showstopper challenge which they are provided three and a half hours, the bakers are required to make a multi-tiered cascading mirror glaze cake. This challenge is not only to see if the bakers know the technicalities of the mirror glaze, in which they should indeed be able to see their reflection, but if they understand cake construction, as the bottom layers may compress if the top part of the cake is too heavy, and the top layers may collapse or tilt if they do not have the necessary supports.
Episode 2
Bread Week
44 mins
It's bread week meaning all things yeast, with the signature challenge, making a Tarte Tropézienne, perhaps seeming outside of the nature of bread by its very name. Named by Brigitte Bardot, this tarte is actually a brioche "cake" sandwich filled with pastry cream. Beyond the basics identifying it as a Tarte Tropézienne, the bakers are given free reign as to flavors and other embellishments. The bakers are given two and a half hours to complete the challenge. For the technical challenge, the judges want the bakers to make twelve pretzels accompanied by a cheese spread. What the judges are looking for are a crispy brown salted exterior, a melt-in-your-mouth interior, and uniformity, not only between the twelve pretzels in the classic shape, but in the strands of the braid of each. The bakers are given two and a half hours to complete the challenge. And for the showstopper, the bakers are asked to make a two-tiered bread centerpiece. The two tiers must be made of different types of bread, each stuffed with a filling of the bakers' choice, and as a centerpiece be visually appealing as viewed from any side. The bakers are given four hours to complete the challenge.
Episode 3
Cookie Week
44 mins
The signature bake for cookie week has the bakers making eighteen linzer cookies apiece in ninety minutes. Beyond the uniformity between the eighteen and the bake itself, the bakers have to ensure the rolling of the dough is even, the flavors of the cookie and its filling are complimentary - they able to go outside the traditional - the filling is distributed right to the edge of the cookie without overflowing, and that the filling reaches just to the top of the cookie in its distinctive "window". They have to make another sandwich cookie for the technical, the Dutch stroopwafel which is caramel-filled. They have to make twelve uniform cookies apiece, be sure to pay attention to the timing as it is a matter of seconds between it being underdone and overdone, that the cookies are cut into perfect rounds, and that the caramel itself has a nice stretch when the cookie is pulled apart. The bakers have one and three-quarter hours for the challenge. And for the showstopper, the bakers have three and a half hours to make a two or three dimensional "family portrait" out of cookie. The term family is up to each baker to define, they must include two different types of cookies, and royal icing must be used.
Episode 4
Italian Week
44 mins
For Italian week, the bakers will double the bake for their signature in having to make two dozen biscotti in two different flavors. Beyond the flavors, the judges are looking for a crispy exterior and an interior that is not rock hard. The bakers have ninety minutes for this challenge. For the technical challenge, the bakers are asked to make twelve cannoncini, better known in English as Italian cream horns. This challenge sets a record in the longest technical yet at three hours, fifteen minutes. The challenges with it are to make the puff pastry properly so that the butter does not leak out when baking, and to wrap the pastry properly around the mold in a way that it shows no cracks for the cream filling to leak out. And in honor of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the bakers will be making a tower structure using three types of Italian treats, their choice of sweet or savory, as the showstopper. They have four hours to complete the challenge.
Episode 5
Botanical Week
44 mins
The show does a first in having a Botanical Week, namely all things having to do with plants. For the signature, the bakers are required to make eight mini fruit tarts in two hours. Beyond the fact that the finished products need to be fruit forward and be tart sized, the bakers are given free reign on all other aspects. In Kyla's hint to keep green, the bakers learn that for the technical, they will each be making sixteen pan-fried herb garden dumplings - the dough and filling both with herbaceous elements - with a scallion sauce accompaniment in one and three-quarter hours. Outside most of the bakers' comfort zone, the challenge will be to cook the dumpling properly so that the dough and the filling are done at the same time. And for the showstopper which they will have four hours to complete, the bakers will each be making at least a two-tiered botanical cake in which the decorating theme needs to be floral and hand made in nature, and the cake itself have at least one botanical flavor.
Episode 6
Pastry Week
44 mins
It's the quarter-finals, the remaining bakers dealing with pastry this week, one of the generally more feared aspects of baking. For the signature for which they have two and half hours, they each have to make a strudel, sweet or savory, at least twelve inches in length. They have to be concerned about the lamination in the paper thin pastry and that the filling is not too moist to make the pastry soggy and that will set properly within the time restrictions. The next challenge, the technical, has the bakers each making a British classic, the bakewell tart, in two and a half hours. The bakers will have to work on instinct as Kyla, who set this challenge, has provided scant details in the instructions. They have an additional two and half hours for the their final bake of the weekend, the showstopper, for which they will have to make a vegetable tart. They are provided great leeway in the only stipulation being that it must include at least three different vegetables. And with all three challenges, the bakers have to be concerned with the dreaded soggy bottom.
Episode 7
Fancy Desserts Week
44 mins
It's the semi-finals, and one of the four remaining bakers will face the heartache of arguably the worst position of being eliminated at the conclusion of these three bakes, and thus not make it into the finals. For their fancy dessert signature, each baker will have three hours to make twelve entremets, which are all about getting each layer right, putting them all together right, with the final product coated professionally and neatly. In Bruno's parting words of "passionate but gentle", the bakers discover their fancy dessert technical is for each to make a passion chocolate charlotte cake in two and a quarter hours, the passion referring to a passion fruit chocolate ganache layer, and a passion fruit gelée decoration. Much like the signature, the mousse may be the key in ensuring that it sets in time so that it holds together when the charlotte is sliced. And the final bake of the fancy dessert semi-final is a meringue crunch cake, its preparation which may the longest three and a half hours the bakers have faced in the tent thus far before the announcement of the three finalists.
Episode 8
Finale
44 mins
The finale has arrived with the last three bakers standing being Tanner Davies, Mahathi Mundluru and Raufikat Oyawoye. They have two and a half hours for their third to last bake, an ice cream bomb which must contain at least a layer of cake and two different layers of homemade ice cream. On this hot day, the set of the ice creams may be the biggest challenge. Their penultimate bake, for which they have two and three-quarter hours, may be the most stressful in not having any preconceived notion of what they would be asked to do. That ask is to make a St. Honoré cake, a French classic with puff pastry, choux, custard, and cream layers topped with a ring of filled choux buns, these ones with craquelin to provide additional texture. And the final bake of the season, for which they have four and a half hours, is a traditional treat trolley that must contain one picturesque pie, six mini cakes, six Viennoiserie pastries, and eight elegantly decorated cookies. After the three bakes, Bruno and Kyla will make their decision of this year's Great Canadian Baking Show winner, the announcement made in front of this season's eliminated bakers, and for the first time without family and friends due to COVID-19 restrictions.