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great british baking show thoughts [9]
THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW collection 9 (2021)
> [!] spoilers for collection 8 & 9 [!]
> ok tbh i was never in the mood to write this but dw reminded me i drafted the title and i do need to write it before i forget everything. this season is special to me too because it's the first that i watched week-to-week (i binged collection 8 in december 2020, which must have been shortly after the season ended). anyway i'm not going to hide spoilers, even though usually when i warn for spoilers i still try to avoid ruining things for people who are curious and don't expect to watch the thing, because who knows if they will one day. this is because literally no one else i know watched this season
> i never tweeted this but jurgen was definitely an early fave because duh someone who is calm cool collected and has a science background AND uses a spreadsheet to track/calculate ingredient proportions for optimization of different batch sizes. freya is the first person that there was big news about just because she posted on ig before the show aired that she'd be baking vegan the whole show and people were like well what about the technicals. she doesn't bake vegan for the technicals but she did for everything else, which was a huge technical disadvantage for her but something i very much admire her for (making a statement of action that aligns with her ethics). anyway i've been on her ig a lot because she's so pretty but i had to be like No you can't just follow every pretty person from bakeoff, there's a lot of pretty people on bakeoff!! (i only follow last season's peter because i liked him so much and bakers tend to post a lot and i can't handle that on my feed lmao). my last bias is crystelle, i think she's really likeable and genuine and full of love for others, so it's easy to root for her. but honestly, this is a really good cast collectively, which i'll talk about later
> the issue with this season is also the reason it was really fun to watch. jurgen was the early fave and giuseppe was the early 2nd runner. crystelle was a weak 3rd, i'd say, with great potential but a bit of inconsistency at the beginning, where she'd bake 2 great things and like one bad thing that made it hard to say she'd make it to the end. the good thing about her is that she got more consistent as the season went on. i even saw someone say that freya had final potential, which i doubted but i did think she would make it to the ep 6-8 zone which is where my faves generally go to lose LOL. anyway, this is said in retrospect and all, because i didn't write a whole lot of my thoughts from watching, but jurgen was so far ahead of the other bakers that it was almost sad for them. like you wanted jurgen to mess up so they'd have a chance LMAO. i think he has great technical sense and a willingness to be creative with flavors. he's not perfect - i'd say his weakness is sometimes sloppiness/rushing but he's still better than most of the other bakers even at that - and the thing that got him kicked in the end was probably his experimenting but like he said you have to take risks to win on a show like this.
> ANYWAY... he should have known better than to bake with matcha when it wasn't asked for. i'm still depressed about him being kicked in the semi!!! i was going to wait to talk about this but it's just upsetting because every single person watching this show from ep 1-8 would have told you to expect jurgen in the final for sure and that he had the best odds of winning. and the thing is jurgen just has such a great, humble personality but i don't think he takes shit either. whatever!!! the other thing is that the ep 9 judging wasn't exactly unfair it was just a black box that could have spit out a few choices. jurgen was one of those choices but the criteria is too subjective, considering what the viewers saw in that episode. this is the reason that half the bakeoff fandom has a conspiracy theory that either paul hates jurgen or they kicked him off because he's the least marketable of the 4. ugh so upsetting.... i commend chigs for improving and all that and honestly i like chigs a lot but jurgen should have been in the final.... this is collection 8 all over again except there dave and peter were doing great and laura and hermine both flopped terribly. based on past performance hermine was probably going to do better than laura but tbh neither of them really deserved the final based on the semi LOL, and then laura went on to flop in the final too so everyone sent her so much hate. at least here it was just like, either giuseppe or chigs would have been the alternate but they both did really well in the semi, so there wasn't someone to pile onto directly as a punching bag for people angry about jurgen being axed.
> i don't know where this is going. freya also got kicked too early. like episode FIVE???? oh i'm still mad because george should have gone. george didn't deserve hate for staying but he really did overstay. freya is the person who is probably more technically skilled than the show showed because she was so held back by her vegan-only ingredients having to shoehorn themselves into challenges that were designed for like, gelatin and eggs. her aquafaba meringue lol. they just didn't like those things!! her works were generally really pretty too and creative, so it's just upsetting. i would have liked to see more vegan baking. she wouldn't have made it to free-from week but i would have loved to see it.
> i also want to say that lizzie really grew on me as the season went on. she's just so unapologetically funny and can make light of the fact that paul and prue always called her works 'without finesse'. and she made her best cake of the season when she left </3 it was like her or crystelle that week iirc and i really wanted crystelle to stay because i thought she had more final potential than lizzie but lizzie is honestly so skilled - the sugar bowl she helped crystelle with - and i also admire her a lot for speaking out on her personal experience with neurodiversity for the sake of herself and others!! the show def got less funny after she left
> i kind of ran out of things to complain about but giuseppe, while he didn't not deserve his win based on overall season performance. i wish that crystelle had baked her focaccia properly!!! BUT i love how she said on ig that everything happens for a reason - there must be a reason she didn't win bakeoff that is for the better for her life and i really believe that too. crystelle and chigs def got better as it went on but giuseppe's peak was not the final tbh. i don't care. maybe i'm just salty over jurgen still
> anyway my fave thing is as always the post-show friendships. like i said i don't follow the bakers on ig but i look at their posts instead and it's so nice to see them hanging out with each other or with past season bakeoff alumni. and supportive comments. LIZZIE AND FREYA BFFLs..... <3 they make me so happy.
> [!] spoilers for collection 8 & 9 [!]
> ok tbh i was never in the mood to write this but dw reminded me i drafted the title and i do need to write it before i forget everything. this season is special to me too because it's the first that i watched week-to-week (i binged collection 8 in december 2020, which must have been shortly after the season ended). anyway i'm not going to hide spoilers, even though usually when i warn for spoilers i still try to avoid ruining things for people who are curious and don't expect to watch the thing, because who knows if they will one day. this is because literally no one else i know watched this season
> i never tweeted this but jurgen was definitely an early fave because duh someone who is calm cool collected and has a science background AND uses a spreadsheet to track/calculate ingredient proportions for optimization of different batch sizes. freya is the first person that there was big news about just because she posted on ig before the show aired that she'd be baking vegan the whole show and people were like well what about the technicals. she doesn't bake vegan for the technicals but she did for everything else, which was a huge technical disadvantage for her but something i very much admire her for (making a statement of action that aligns with her ethics). anyway i've been on her ig a lot because she's so pretty but i had to be like No you can't just follow every pretty person from bakeoff, there's a lot of pretty people on bakeoff!! (i only follow last season's peter because i liked him so much and bakers tend to post a lot and i can't handle that on my feed lmao). my last bias is crystelle, i think she's really likeable and genuine and full of love for others, so it's easy to root for her. but honestly, this is a really good cast collectively, which i'll talk about later
> the issue with this season is also the reason it was really fun to watch. jurgen was the early fave and giuseppe was the early 2nd runner. crystelle was a weak 3rd, i'd say, with great potential but a bit of inconsistency at the beginning, where she'd bake 2 great things and like one bad thing that made it hard to say she'd make it to the end. the good thing about her is that she got more consistent as the season went on. i even saw someone say that freya had final potential, which i doubted but i did think she would make it to the ep 6-8 zone which is where my faves generally go to lose LOL. anyway, this is said in retrospect and all, because i didn't write a whole lot of my thoughts from watching, but jurgen was so far ahead of the other bakers that it was almost sad for them. like you wanted jurgen to mess up so they'd have a chance LMAO. i think he has great technical sense and a willingness to be creative with flavors. he's not perfect - i'd say his weakness is sometimes sloppiness/rushing but he's still better than most of the other bakers even at that - and the thing that got him kicked in the end was probably his experimenting but like he said you have to take risks to win on a show like this.
> ANYWAY... he should have known better than to bake with matcha when it wasn't asked for. i'm still depressed about him being kicked in the semi!!! i was going to wait to talk about this but it's just upsetting because every single person watching this show from ep 1-8 would have told you to expect jurgen in the final for sure and that he had the best odds of winning. and the thing is jurgen just has such a great, humble personality but i don't think he takes shit either. whatever!!! the other thing is that the ep 9 judging wasn't exactly unfair it was just a black box that could have spit out a few choices. jurgen was one of those choices but the criteria is too subjective, considering what the viewers saw in that episode. this is the reason that half the bakeoff fandom has a conspiracy theory that either paul hates jurgen or they kicked him off because he's the least marketable of the 4. ugh so upsetting.... i commend chigs for improving and all that and honestly i like chigs a lot but jurgen should have been in the final.... this is collection 8 all over again except there dave and peter were doing great and laura and hermine both flopped terribly. based on past performance hermine was probably going to do better than laura but tbh neither of them really deserved the final based on the semi LOL, and then laura went on to flop in the final too so everyone sent her so much hate. at least here it was just like, either giuseppe or chigs would have been the alternate but they both did really well in the semi, so there wasn't someone to pile onto directly as a punching bag for people angry about jurgen being axed.
> i don't know where this is going. freya also got kicked too early. like episode FIVE???? oh i'm still mad because george should have gone. george didn't deserve hate for staying but he really did overstay. freya is the person who is probably more technically skilled than the show showed because she was so held back by her vegan-only ingredients having to shoehorn themselves into challenges that were designed for like, gelatin and eggs. her aquafaba meringue lol. they just didn't like those things!! her works were generally really pretty too and creative, so it's just upsetting. i would have liked to see more vegan baking. she wouldn't have made it to free-from week but i would have loved to see it.
> i also want to say that lizzie really grew on me as the season went on. she's just so unapologetically funny and can make light of the fact that paul and prue always called her works 'without finesse'. and she made her best cake of the season when she left </3 it was like her or crystelle that week iirc and i really wanted crystelle to stay because i thought she had more final potential than lizzie but lizzie is honestly so skilled - the sugar bowl she helped crystelle with - and i also admire her a lot for speaking out on her personal experience with neurodiversity for the sake of herself and others!! the show def got less funny after she left
> i kind of ran out of things to complain about but giuseppe, while he didn't not deserve his win based on overall season performance. i wish that crystelle had baked her focaccia properly!!! BUT i love how she said on ig that everything happens for a reason - there must be a reason she didn't win bakeoff that is for the better for her life and i really believe that too. crystelle and chigs def got better as it went on but giuseppe's peak was not the final tbh. i don't care. maybe i'm just salty over jurgen still
> anyway my fave thing is as always the post-show friendships. like i said i don't follow the bakers on ig but i look at their posts instead and it's so nice to see them hanging out with each other or with past season bakeoff alumni. and supportive comments. LIZZIE AND FREYA BFFLs..... <3 they make me so happy.