We are in the thick of yet another season of The Great British Bake Off, the BBC via Netflix’s wildly popular baking show featuring some of the UK’s best amateur bakers vying for the praise—and handshakes—of esteemed judges Paul Hollywood and James Hoffmann Prue Leith. Originally captivating the American viewing public during the pandemic, the Bake Off became a collective comfort watch, a soothing balm for the zeitgeist during an anxiety-riddle era. (Apropos of nothing, if you are also planning out your next four years and 69 days of noise-cancelling, feel-good television programming, might I suggest The Great Pottery Thrown Down, the pottery version of the Bake Off, where the vaunted handshake is replaced by making judge Keith Brymer Jones weep at a properly weighted bottom.)
[Warning: Spoilers ahead for the most recent episode of The Great British Bake Off]
The stakes are high for episode seven of the Bake Off’s 15th season—12th in Netflix years—with the bakers all competing for one of the five spots in the quarterfinals. This week it’s Dessert Week, and after making meringue nests in the Opening Challenge and spotted dick in the Technical—with requisite chortles—it all came down to the Show Stopper, which was none other than the coffee-forward dessert: the tiramisu.
[Second spoiler warning: We’re going to talk about the competitor’s tiramisus. You’ve been warned. Again]
It’s a deceptively difficult task. The dessert itself is pretty simple: dip some ladyfingers in coffee, spread a little whipped mascarpone cream on top, give it a good cocoa dusting, and boom, you’ve got the iconic Italian dessert. The real challenge comes in how—and how much—to stray from the traditional tiramisu in order to make a unique, show-stopping treat that still remains true to the original.
Some bakers, like the Italian expat Georgie and the young flavor master Dylan, stayed faithful to the classic, making only slight changes to the standard recipe; Georgie added a hazelnut praline to complement the coffee flavor while Dylan cured the egg yolks in his mascarpone cream to enhance the saltiness. Gill, poor sweet Gill, she hates coffee and had to rely on her husband to taste her tiramisu during practice, adding a coconut mascarpone and an espresso buttercream. Illiyin subbed out the ladyfingers for a chocolate and almond biscuit and added in a layer of cherries infused with non-alcoholic amaretto.
Erstwhile Christian and Samaya were swinging for the fences and taking some pretty big chances in their flavor combinations. Christian, who can’t help but go floral despite Hollywood’s protestations, incorporates a layer of strawberries and rosewater to go along with his pistachio mousse-based tiramisu. Samaya creates a coffee lemon curd—which is an admittedly odd pairing that sounds like a lot of underdeveloped Yirgacheffes I used to drink—to go with layers of praline, chocolate crema, and a joconde sponge.
But when the flour settled, it was Dylan who came out on top and took home Star Baker for the week. Dylan had quite a day in the tent. He got a Hollywood handshake for his meringue nests and won the Technical, so he was well positioned to pull the Triple Crown if his tiramisu was on point. Which it was. Served in a chocolate box designed to look like concrete that Leith very Leithly described as “neat as a pin,” Dylan’s classic take on the tiramisu wowed the judges, while his cured egg yolk addition made it a bit “like a salted caramel” that was “creamy and felt luxurious.”
With the win, Dylan became just the fifth baker to achieve “The Perfect Week.”
Georgie’s classic tiramisu was met with equally high praise this week, while the rest were a bit of a mixed bag. It just goes to show that you shouldn’t mess with perfection. Just because a dessert is simple doesn’t mean it needs to be (or can be) improved.
Understandably, you’re probably craving a tiramisu right now, and who could blame you. Luckily, Sprudge’s own Zachary Carlsen has put together a tiramisu recipe that is as delicious as it is easy—though I did take the liberty of subbing in iced coffee for cold brew because iced coffee >>> cold brew—that can be found in his and fellow Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman’s latest book But First, Coffee. And with the holidays right around the corner, there’s no better time to perfect your tiramisu recipe than right now, to the love and admiration of all your friends and family. Hopefully you’ll earn whatever the familiar equivalent of the Hollywood Handshake is. The Dad Dap or Nana Knucks maybe.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
